


The Moments In Between

by Leyenn



Series: Swordplay [2]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief moment of quiet, shared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunrise

There's never been a city like this one. The light splits apart into a dozen hues and shades as the sun rises between spires of metal and crystal, rising up into the palest of blue skies, all of it just as elegant as she'd have imagined.

Susan Ivanova isn't exactly a poet, but she's got to admit, it's pretty amazing. Tuzanor, the City of Sorrows, newly-born capital of the Interstellar Alliance, waking up from its famous dreams into the early morning light. The balcony of their apartment is high enough to catch the heat of the morning even in the growing shade of the building behind her; the carved crystal is almost soft with warmth under her hands, soft as the cloak wrapped around her shoulders, but casting rainbows of light around her feet.

This is her first sunrise in almost five years, and it's beautiful.

  


*

  


Talia walks up behind her. She smiles out into the growing light for a long, long moment before looking over her shoulder, afraid of breaking the spell, afraid of the warmth slipping away.

"Lovely morning, huh?"

"Perfect." Slender arms rustle her cloak as they wrap around her, and the warmth is not lost, no, it's right here and going nowhere at all, damned fast indeed. "Mm." Talia presses a smile close to her neck. "Breakfast is waiting. And we have a busy day ahead of both of us."

"I know." But still she doesn't move; just holds her wife's warm, pale hands against her and looks outward again, at the light exploring the city and the new dawn rising above the mountains beyond.

  


*

  



	2. Rebirth

It amazes her to realise that she's never seen Susan in the natural light of a sunrise, even one not of their own world. Oh, in sunlight, yes, and under a sky of sparkling stars set overhead, and against the blackness of space and the red strangeness of hyperspace reflected through a dozen different windows on a dozen different ships. But never like this.

She's never had clear crystal doors to look out through onto a wide crystal balcony, or a doorframe of smooth, somehow warm metal to rest under her hand as she opens the doors and leans against it. She's never had a spectacular view out over a crystal city that looks as if it could be grown and shaped out of the very heart of the world, as if it's been this way forever and might still shift and change before her eyes.

And then it does, as she walks out and sees it all, really sees it, for the first time, with the light spilling down in a rolling liquid tide and breaking against the spires, shattering into rainbows like she's never seen - rainbows that feel alive with silent warmth and a kind of spreading joy that, she realises, must be hers.

  


*

  


Susan's hands are over hers, Susan's thick, native cloak softly textured under her palm; Susan's hair warm against her cheek, a softness at the corner of her eye, and so just for a moment - a long, long moment - she forgets everything today holds for them and everything they have still to do, and she just listens.

She's never had this. This moment when everything stops for the sun to rise, when everything is peaceful, when even the chill in the air and the strange food on the breakfast table are part of the perfection of it all. She's never gotten out of bed to the sound of temple bells in the distance, or held onto a lover's bare fingers in a new morning scattered with color. She's never seen the world, any world, like this before.

"Talia?" Susan leans against her, smiling at her silence. "Hey. Busy day, remember?"

"I know." But she smiles and waits, holds very still and just _listens_, and the City of Sorrows sings back with joy into her mind.

  


*

  



End file.
